Clean Old-Fashioned Hate (a.k.a. Hell's too good for 'em)

It doesn't have to be pretty to be appreciated, does it? I was unfortunately in some crappy part of the country that refused to televise the game. Which game do I get? The West Virginia game.I mean, come on. That game was over just after the first half. I think that at some point they actually did switch to the UGA game, but by then most of those crazy plays had already happened. Regardless, georgiadogs.com has a great compilation of pictures.
I've been reading some of the message boards, and there seems to be a general consensus that somehow the referees were cheating for UGA. What games have you seen this year? What about all the games where the referees were doing everything in their power to ensure that we don't win? All the tech fans appear to be hung up on this pass interference call. As bitter as we may be about certain games in the past that affected us, the calls that are made are a part of the game. That is not to say that the pass interference call was bogus. It is just to say that even if there are questionable calls, you still have to make enough plays to win the game in spite of the officiating. I would refer you back to the Florida game and to the Auburn game that we played in this year. We really pissed off the officials, and it showed. Yet, we continued to make plays and still won those games.
By the way, if I were a Georgia Tech alumnus I would think it would be pretty embarrassing that over half my stadium was comprised of the opposing team's fans. Although, I bet they're used to it. I don't know why, but it's just further proof that Atlanta is one of the worst sports cities in the country. Do you think we could start a website called keepchangailey.com? Maybe we can also put in a request for Reggie Ball to come back as Tech's quarterbacks coach.
Of course, I'm always a sucker for an anti-motivational poster. I highly recommend following that link if you're into some anti-Georgia Tech humor. Who isn't?

What else is there to say?

I was going to try and come up with something clever for the Tech game. I don't think that there's much more to say, other than what DawgBone.net came up with. Then again, why do we even have to make anything up? They do it to themselves. I wish that they'd steal Matthew Stafford's jersey so that we could not only beat them, but do it with their shirts on our back, kinda like Sean Glennon did.





And then there's this from the Golden Tornado, a couple of years ago...

• Nathan: You asked what Tech students do on Friday nights, but what we all really want to know is if UGA grads actually put “Able to drink an entire fifth in one sitting” and “Sat with hot co-eds in class” on their resumes?
• Doug: Don’t have to. When prospective employers see a Georgia degree on our résumés, they just assume it.

I hate Tech. I guess you already knew that, huh?

The battle of attrition continues...

Now what? CBS currently had us at #6 before this game, I guess according to the AP poll. Think about it.

1. Mizzou (4) and Kansas (2) have to play, so one of them has to lose. We're #5.


2. LSU now has lost it's second game, now we're #4.


3. If Kansas wins that game and loses to OU in the Big 12 Championship, we're #3.


4. If WVU loses to either UConn or Pitt, we're #2.


5. Keep in mind, this is regardless of whether or not we play in the SECCG.

Why not? Crazier things have happened, right? Of course this is clearly all for naught if we lose to Georgia Tech. The question now is where would we go if we don't go to the SECCG, and now LSU is not going to the BCSCG? Fiesta or Rose? As a testament to the crazy season, we're still in this stupid thing with 2 losses, and it may not help us to go to be SEC Champs, although I don't see how it could hurt. Unless we lost. Then it might be Outback Bowl or Chik-fil-A (weren't we just there?), against either Michigan, VT, or BC.

Monday = D-day

Lucy, Jennifer and ?Julia?
As if I had a life...atleast I'm not Jennifer! Thought I'd share a pic of the final days of pregnancy with you guys.

Gobble, Gobble...

Mmmmm....Thanksgiving....Just because no family are willing to visit me and my very pregnant family doesn't mean the Whites aren't going to have a big Thanksgiving meal! As per usual, I decided we'd pretty much have the works. My first experiment began last week. I wondered if smoking a turkey for the big day would be worthwhile, so I ran up to the Bi-Lo and bought a 5-lb turkey breast for a trial run. I rubbed the thing with some cajun spices, lit the BGE and set for 250 degrees, threw on some Jack Daniels smoking chunks, and about 3 1/2 hours later, this emerged...

BGE Turkey Breast

Looks good, tastes great, but for me was a big to BBQ for Turkey Day. Jen thought I was crazy for making this thing the Sunday before, but hey, it was a snap with the BGE and we had BBQ turkey sandwiches and the following day...

Turkey Pot Pie

Turkey pot-pie! This is AB's recipe that uses frozen, roasted veggies and curry powder...very good actually...With that said, I decided to ditch the BGE and do a Cook's Illustrated classic, "High-Roast Turkey". Jen and I have made this for 5 years running and it never fails to be a juicy, perfectly cooked bird. You start by spatchcocking the turkey (hack out the back bone, snip out the rib cage, and pound the sucker flat (barbaric but quite fun)) and brine overnight in the cooler. When you're ready to go, you just take the floppy turkey out of the brine, wipe dry, season, and place on a BROILER pan at 450 degrees (hence the high-roast). After about 80 to 90 minutes the thigh meat will be about 175 degrees and the turkey is done...that's it, an hour and 1/2 for a delicious 12 lb turkey with super crispy skin.

High-Roast Turkey

I decided to make a green onion gravy from this year's Bon Ap and their ham, leek cornbread stuffing muffins. I rounded out the deal with a butternut squash chowder, collards cooked in a ham stock, sweet potatoes, and a cranberry-apple compote.

Cornbread Dressing with Ham and Leeks

Butternut Squash Chowder & Green Onion Gravy
Collards cooked in Ham Hock Stock

Thanksgiving 2007

Dessert: Apple Tart (above) Pecan Praline Tart (below)

This was some good eats, which is a good thing b/c when you cook this much for 2 people, you tend to have some left-overs...Happy Thanksgiving!

Comfort food makes your clothes not so comfortable

Here's a couple of fall recipes that might hit the spot as we're getting close to the holiday.

Roasted acorn squash salad with bacon vinaigrette

One whole acorn squash, peeled, cut into 1 inch slices, seeded

1 cup of bacon cut into "semi-lardons"

sherry vinegar, 2 tbsp

olive oil, 3 tbsp + 1 tbsp

1 whole shallot, minced

mixed greens, arugala, or dandelion greens

Roncal cheese (can sub Parm-Reg or Manchego)

3/4 cup of pecans, roasted or not

Thyme

Salt

1. Roast the acorn squash (or whatever squash you have, you could also use sweet potato) tossed on a baking sheet with olive oil, thyme, and salt
2. Cut your bacon up and cook it over medium-high heat, stop before it gets crispy, and add the shallot.
3. Emulsify the vinegar and oil. When the bacon is "done," add it and keep on warm.
4. Lay down some greens, then put your squash, pecans (crushed), bacon vinaigrette, and sliced cheese (can do this with a vegetable peeler).
5. If there is going to be a delay in serving, keep your squash in foil so they stay warm.

"Mole" vegetarian chili

There's going to be some skepticism about this, but it's actually pretty tasty.

1. 3 15 oz cans of pinto beans
2. 1 large can of whole tomatoes
3. 1 oz bar of semisweet chocolate
4. 1 tbsp of cumin powder
5. 2 ancho chiles, dried
6. 1 tsp of cinnamon
7. 1 chipotle chile, dried
8. 2 small onions, chopped
9. 2 smallish zucchinis, chopped
10. 3 cloves of garlic, minced
11. salt
12. pepper
13. 1.5 cups of water
14. 1 tbsp of orange zest or orange juice
15. olive oil

Seed, stem the chiles and toast them dry on a saute pan.

Add the chiles, cumin powder, cinnamon to a molcajete (mortar/pestle) and grind to a fine powder.

Brown onions in olive oil over medium high heat in a dutch oven. When they soften, add the garlic for a minute or so.

Add the chile powder. This will stick and burn a little bit, don't worry, you want that. Give it as long as you can stand it, and add the zucchini. Let that soften/sweat a while.

Add the tomatoes, water, orange juice or zest, chocolate, and salt/pepper to taste until the zucchini's done. Then, add the pinto beans.

Simmer. Remember, it's better the next day.

Could you add meat? Sure. I suppose that there are a lot of things that you could do with it such as use that liquid to braise a pork shoulder, shred it, and throw it in. You could add ground beef or pork, or whatever you want. Be creative with it!

Godamighty Willie, Godamighty!

I just can't believe that I'd say something like that after all of the blogs that I wrote with pretty heavy criticism about him. Honestly, though, I think he's learned a lot this season about scheming properly and guessing correctly. I thought the adjustment that we made after the first quarter was amazing. I mean, we gave up 3 points the rest of the game, and kept handing them turnovers.

Offense

QB That sucked. He made some good throws to keep us in it. He also some bad throws to keep it closer than it had to be. Andre' Woodson made a postgame comment about the wind affecting the ball, but the pregame guys said that it was 7 mph. UK did a good job of getting pressure on him early by stacking the middle and the left. They had Staff off-balance a fair amount and forced him into bad throws. Two interceptions, and it could have been 3 or 4, easily.

Receivers They get my vote for most-improved of the season. They still seem to be catching everything that comes their way.

O-line Had a rough start, and got man-handled a little bit. UK finally figured out what we've been doing, and Richt even said it after one of our games, essentially running behind the upper-classmen to the left. Alabama tried to do it to us, also, and Saban said something like that at halftime. What happened, we shut that shit down the second half, but kept them in it 'till overtime. I saw something on DawgSports that said that Scott Haverkamp was off the team. Any clue?

Running backs What can I say? Other than the two brain-dead fumbles... The first one, it looked like Knowsho ran into our own guy and the ball just flew out. I don't really see what any UK defender did to make that happen. The second was a matter of a great defensive play and TB not switching hands to outside once he got past the first line. Trippy! Knowshon, that guy just has a new level of elusiveness that we haven't had in a running back since I can remember. I mean, Huhhshul wasn't elusive; he didn't have to be. If you tried to tackle, he knocked your dick in the dirt, right Bill?

Offensive Coaching OK, fine, I understand the concept of wearing them down with the runs up the middle and trying to establish your presence up front. You can't ever completely give it up. I was watching the game with a guy that has never seen a UGA game this season, and he was asking what UGA's strengths are. I said the finesse running game and the deep ball. That's exactly what UK was expecting, and we didn't disappoint. We played a step behind for a while, and then our depth took over and we just won.

Dline Struggled a little bit getting in there, and then when CWM started mixing it up, we got some sacks. They came mostly on blitz plays. Good depth, and we just keep bringing different dudes every play. UK could not run. At all. 32 yds total.

Linebackers Really got into it with the blitzing. Ellerbee had lucky pass breakup that he had no business knocking away. Didn't do a great job of coverage. Curran is a freaking stud. That guy's everywhere, and he's the big hitter we've been looking for.

Secondary Here we go again with Kelin. That guy, I swear. He makes some brain-dead looking plays, and then shows up and makes a huge play. Int, blocked punt. Otherwise, it was hit or miss. There were some coverage sacks, so hat's off.

Coaching This has really improved through the season. CWM is understanding that pressure is good pass defense. He brings delayed blitzes, and those are effective. We are moving away from vanilla defense. We definitely look a lot smarter now, especially when the other team sees the "look" and audibles. We adjust on the fly, and we weren't doing that. See my post UT rant. It was obvious that if gave one of the best QB's in the SEC any time, he was going to light us up. "Bend-but-don't-break" wasn't going to work. So there, Big Head Joe Kines.

Special Teams I still can't understand how we have one of the best legs in the SEC, and we can't or won't kick deep on kickoffs. The blocked punt was awesome and really was a momentum swinger. Coutu was money, and it's a strange season for us where we're not kicking about 3-4 field goals per game. This has got to be a low for Richt since he's been at UGA. Kickoff return was actually great, considering the opening kickoff. We cooled, but we're still a threat. Mikey Henderson left the game sometime in the 2nd quarter, for what, we don't know.

Final GD UT gettin' by. By the skin of their tooth. That field goal would've done it, UGA in the SECCG. I had some mixed feelings about whether I wanted to go to that game. We have nothing to gain, right? Wrong. We can beat LSU, and they know it. Besides UF, I don't think there are too many teams that have any strong desire to play us.

I'm proud of this team. The coaching staff has undergone an incredible turnaround, and that's the story behind the story that you don't know unless you have been following these guys all year. The light seems to have been turned on, and those guys are on fire right now! I never would've thought that we'd be in contention for the SEC championship before the season, and least of all after that UT game. In the words of Richt about that UT game, "Never again." But the real turnaround is very well descrived by Mark Bradley in the AJC about the fumble that Vandy had on their game-winning drive that led to our field goal at the end of regulation. The celebration wasn't the Dawgs getting excited about beating Vandy as much as it was realizing that winning was as much or more about desire as it was talent and X's and O's.

I know you can't do it every week. Look around this league, no one can. But sometimes, you have to just will yourself to a win.

"This has been the season when Georgia reminded everyone it’s still Georgia."

"Then one of the players said, 'Coach, you are the key. You have got to keep it going.'"

Exactly.